A semi-spoiler free positive look at Brad Anderson's THE MACHINIST!!!

Ahoy, squirts. Quint here with a review of Brad Anderson's newest flick, THE MACHINIST, starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh (yum-yum) and the living, imposing cinema god Michael Ironside. I'm a huge fan of Brad Anderson's work, starting with SESSION 9, a solid atmostpheric horror flick and continuing with HAPPY ACCIDENTS, which I love... I used to have a copy of that movie, but some long haired hippy borrowed it and decided he didn't want to give it back. Oh well... Anyway, I'm very much looking forward to this film. Here's a fairly spoiler-free review to whet your appetites!

Harry,

Long time listener, first time caller, and I’m happy to finally have a
chance to maybe contribute something back to the site that helps me
whittle away many dead hours at work. This is my first time for
something like this, so hopefully it doesn't suck too bad and maybe it's something you could use. The review is below:

The other night I attended a “pre-screening” of the new Brad Anderson
film, “The Machinist” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. We don’t
really seem to get many opportunities like this here in Beantown, at
least not that I’m aware of, so needless to say I was pretty excited
to get a chance to see the next film from the man that brought us
“Session 9,” one of the best horror movies in the past few years. Even
before “Session 9,” I was a fan of the other Anderson’s films I’d
seen: “Next Stop, Wonderland,” and “Happy Accidents.” I found that
through these films that encompass several different genres, he has
remained a consistently strong fi! lmmaker, both in writing and
directing.

Anyway, enough prelude, and on to the film. I’ll try to keep this as
spoiler-free as possible, which means I can’t really tell you all that
much.

“The Machinist” stars Christian Bale as Trevor Reznik, a man suffering
from an extreme case of insomnia, stating at one point in the movie
that he “hasn’t slept in a year.” That’s not the worst of it, however,
as he starts to receive mysterious notes in his apartment, and has
multiple encounters with a co-worker that no one else can see. After
this mysterious co-worker contributes in Trevor causing a catastrophic
accident, Trevor starts to spiral downward into a world of paranoia
and madness, believing that his coworkers and eventually his
paid-for-by-the-hour girlfriend, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, are
trying to drive him insane.

There’s little more I can tell you without giving away the twist to
the film, because of course there is one. It’s never a question of
when, but of what and why, and while there are certain aspects you may
be able to figure out while watching, the whole picture doesn’t become
clear until the last few minutes. Anderson does a really good job of
pacing the doling out of information to keep the audience interested,
but never so much so that you should be able to figure out too much
before he wants you to. And the movie is constructed so that when you
hit the twist, it will add a lot of extra meaning to scenes that had
occurred earlier in the film.

The feel of this movie is one of constant bleakness and tension,
conveyed not just by the acting and actions of the characters, but
also by the washed out look of the film. So much of the color is bled
out that at times it almost looks like it’s a black and white film on
the screen, which fits very well with a script, (written by Scott
Kosar, who has since gone on to pen the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and
“Amityville Horror” remakes), that very much has the feel of Hitchcock
or the Twilight Zone.

The acting, for the most part, is solid all around. Bale lost about 60
pounds for his part, sporting a body that makes Calista Flockhart look
chubby, and his performance is good as someone who is becoming more
and more unhinged by the events going on around him. Jennifer Jason
Leigh also stands out in an understated performance. There’s not a
whole hell of a lot to her part, but she plays it very well with a
strong sense of someone who has been run down by her life. John
Sharian, as Ivan (the non-existent??? co-worker) was decent, but
honestly, Ivan didn’t seem as menacing to me as he was supposed to
have been. Bale’s on-screen relationship with Marie, his coffee-shop
waitress, played by Aitana Sannchez-Gijon, is very sweet, and somewhat
jarring, considering the nature of the rest of the film. But that
dichotomy is also explained by the end.

Overall, it’s not a perfect film--you will be left with a few
unanswered questions--but it is very good. I’m not sure how it’ll
play out with audiences in general when it gets released (probably
sometime in the fall, according to Anderson), because it is pretty
bleak and doesn’t have a neatly wrapped happy ending, but I’d
definitely recommend it.